deater

Well the Kerbals figured out why we kept running out of delta V. We had unintentionally entered Jool orbit retrograde. Oops. Various attempts to correct this due to gravity assists led to losing a lander pemanently on Tylo. A much more successful method of going prograde using Laythe aerobraking went better. That lander made it to Pol, although much fuel was wasted finding a landing spot where they wouldn't be exploded by a Kraken. The mothership tried to pick up the crew on Laythe, but the lander didn't have enough deltaV to make orbit! Another lander lost. So the mothership went on to rendezvous at Pol and managed to dock with the last remaining lander for refueling. Maybe we can salvage what remains of this mission. Pictures and more details here: http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/jool_disaster/jool_disaster.html

The Jool ship KSPSpaceman Spiff has finally left for Jool with its 13 brave crew members: Bob, Al and Herlong in the Command Module Lodfrey, Aldley, Jenwin, and Kenney in the Planetary Party Lounge Derler, Kellas, and Billy-Bobry piloting the 3 landers Milford, Alfrid, and Ading bravely riding on the outside. The journey was fairly uneventful, but the aerobraking at the end took some practice. Derler and friend quickly set out to see Laythe, and find out what the fuss was. It took way more fuel than expected, so as per tradition with our missions, they are possibly stuck there. Pictures here: http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/jool_finally/jool_finally.html

not very hilarious for the poor Kerbals involved. You should see my docking skills, I'm even worse at that than I am at Mun landings. Here's the current update: after various aborts, explosions, and expensive ship redesigns we have our Jool ship poised to leave orbit: http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/jool_assembly/jool_assembly.html My aforementioned docking skills are so bad I had to abandon my 100 ton lifter as it would take too long to fuel things up that way and I wrote a C program to search the rocket equations to find a workable 400 ton lifter.

Well we gave in to popular opinion and decided to rescue Bob *again*, this time from the Mun. Our re-designed lander finally managed to land without losing any engines, so the mission wasn't entirely useless. The Kerbals also had to show a lot of restraint and not re-start the rocket engines while floating in the ocean when waiting for pickup. http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/bob_rescue2/bob_rescue2.html

So we decided to test the Jool shuttle on a short mission to the Mun. Bob managed to "land" by destroying all the engines. Derler's rescue attempt had some issues too. http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/mun_crash/mun_crash.html

The Kerbals yearn for a trip to Jool now, but Jeb refuses to budge from his Duna-Buggy. Thus we have to mount a rescue for Bob who stranded in a similar orbit to Jeb. http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/bob_rescue/bob_rescue.html Once Bob is back it's time to develop some sort of Jool ship with multiple landers. That turns out not to be as straightforward as it sounds. http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/jool_ship/jool_ship.html

I honestly don't remember. I was very new to the game and didn't know about maneuver nodes, etc., so I think I just aimed at where I thought the Mun would be and accelerated blindly. Didn't end well. And I made it worse trying to return to Kerbin (I think that's where the huge inclination came from). Also managed to strand Bob in a similar orbit; after that I got around to doing some research on the proper way to get places.

A mission to rescue Jeb from Ike was put together at great cost. Although when Herory got there, Jeb hijacked the landing craft and rover and took them to Duna instead of returning to Kerbin. The rover is broken but working just well enough to keep Jeb maniacly happy. Herory returned to Kerbin but found himself without parachutes, SAS, or RCS fuel so he made a dramatic landing on the moon to hang out with his cousin also stranded there. Pictures and more details here: http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/oddrover/oddrover.html

Well Jeb made it to Duna! His rover fell off the roof though during Duna insertion. And then he broke a lander leg. He made it back to orbit, but not enough deltaV to get home to Kerbin. After the 10 years waiting for rescue last time he refused to wait quietly in orbit. He decided on a whim to head for Ike, and when the lander ran out of fuel he decided to EVA down. Would this be the end of Jebediah? Pictures from this adventure can be seen here: http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/duna_adventure/duna_adventure.html

So my Kerbals cry out for a mission to Duna! But they will only fund it if Jebediah captains the mission. Problem: Jeb was lost on the first Mun mission when a Munar insertion failed and he ended up in a crazy eccentric solar orbit with 15 degrees of inclination. So we must rescue Jeb! It took 10+ years and lots of explosions, but eventually it happened. For the full story see here http://www.deater.net/weave/pictures/kerbal/rescue_jeb/rescue_jeb.html